


Nerves

by emetsketeers



Series: puke with a side of H/C [3]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Gen, What is happening to my life, i can't even tag this as emetophilia, it's really just h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-02 21:04:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5263535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emetsketeers/pseuds/emetsketeers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night after Lieutenant Athos' first major mission, Captain Treville goes by to check on him... good thing he does, too...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nerves

**Author's Note:**

> Another prompt by thunderkit :) Keep them coming! This one really confused me though because after I started writing it, it turned into, like, a sort of regular story? Not a puke story? In any case... hope you enjoy...

He brings a bottle of wine and tells the landlady that it’s a celebration. It is, or maybe it could be, but the truth is that Treville also very much suspects his young lieutenant of needing a friendly face tonight.

Everything went well. Athos was _brilliant_. And yet it’s more than a little exhausting, the first time commanding men under actual hostile conditions, and when Athos had finished filing reports and excused himself for the evening he’d looked, well. More than a little exhausted.

Treville has seen this kind of tired before… been this kind of tired before, in fact. But what he finds in Athos’ apartment is a little more dramatic than what he’d been anticipating…

Because what he finds is Athos, on the floor, face in his hands, trembling. _Quaking_.

The bottle of wine clunks dully on the writing desk as Treville sets it down, and kneels at the man's side. Athos, for all his razor-sharp instincts, thus far has not even seemed to notice an intruder in his rooms.

Right beside him now, Treville notices something new: a sharp, bodily kind of smell, that reminds him of a medical tent, and for a moment he thinks that Athos has wet himself… until he realizes what it really is.

Athos has vomited all over himself.

Not just a moment of exhaustion, then, but a full-on attack of nerves.

It isn’t the first he’d seen, but there’s men he would have expected it from before he’d expected it from Athos.

“Athos,” he says, calmly. “It’s Treville. Can you lift your head for me?”

He’s realized something else, crouched down here beside him: Athos isn’t simply shaking, but sobbing, very quietly. An especially harsh one escapes him now.

“Athos,” Treville says again. “Lift your head for me. Look at me. Come on, son.” He takes a chance, puts his hand on Athos’ back.

At last Athos unfolds, just a little, really only lowering his legs an inch or two so he can speak without looking up. “I appreciate your k-kindness, Captain,” he rasps, “but I really w-would prefer you n-not see me like this.”

“See you as I’ve seen a dozen men before you?” Treville counters. “See you just as I was, after my first command mission?”

Athos seems to think about this a moment, during which Treville rubs a thumb against his back. “I’ve m-made a mess of m-myself,” Athos admits, at last.

“Lift your head, son,” Treville says, and though he doesn’t call it an order, they both know it is.

Athos lifts his head. Treville fights to keep his face expressionless. Athos’ shirt and trousers are soaked in pale brown vomit; it’s in his beard, too. His cheeks are streaked with tears.

“There we are,” Treville says, as though it’s a simple thing, as though the worst were over now.

Except Athos looks at Treville looking at him, and begins to sob anew, face crumpling up like a little boy’s. Tears run down his cheeks like rain down windows, and his nose begins dripping too.

“All right. All right. Damn well shaken up, aren’t we?” Treville offers, gently.

Athos’ eyes are wide, and Treville can’t decide if he looks startled or terrified. “Please leave,” he mumbles… and then pitches forward and throws up all over his knees.

Well, if Treville had ever thought of leaving, he certainly won’t now.

Athos is scrubbing a sleeve over his face, desperately, trying to dash away all the tears and vomit but going about it so sloppily that he’s really just smearing them around, together, and in this new wave of sick Treville realizes he smells alcohol.

“Stop,” he commands. Athos does. Stops moving, stops crying. Blinks up at him like he’s got nothing else to look to in the whole world.

Saddened by this, but taking a sort of permission from it, Treville tucks his fingers under the hem of Athos’ shirt, at the back, and pulls it forward over his head. The dark metal medallion he always worries between his fingertips lies heavily on his chest.

“On your feet,” Treville directs, and holds Athos by the arms as he rises on legs shakier than a first-day sailor’s. He all but clings to Treville as together they work his trousers down his legs, and he steps out of them carefully.

Now that he’s up, Treville is hardly going to put him back on the floor; instead he leads him over to the chair that’s a couple of steps away. Athos goes down hard, but doesn’t miss, and sits there shaking.

He watches, eyes big and filled up with unspilling tears as Treville finds a towel, dunks it in the bucket of water, then crouches down at his feet. Without a word Treville wipes the drying vomit from Athos’ beard, then his hands, then his chest. Only when he lifts the locket from Athos’ skin do the tears spill again. His young lieutenant snatches the locket back by the chain, the little bit of color left in his face draining clear away.

“Hush,” Treville soothes, letting his curiosities go unvoiced. “I won’t take it away, son. Just lift it up for me a minute, mm?”

After a pause, Athos does, and Treville finishes cleaning him up.

When he’s done he goes and gets the blanket from Athos’ bed, then tucks it snugly around the man’s shoulders. Athos has stopped crying again by now, and instead just sits there looking exhausted, an even worse kind of exhausted than before.

They stay that way a long long time, while Athos gets control of his ragged breathing.

At last Treville brushes a hand across Athos’ forehead, disquieted by how very cold his skin is to the touch. “Do you want to talk about it?” he prompts, as his fingertips come away.

Athos, as expected, shakes his head.

“I’m not all that bad at shutting my trap and listening when somebody needs it.”

This prompts the tiniest smile from Athos, really just a twitch of the lips, but it warms Treville so dramatically that he has to fight down a shiver. “I believe you, Captain,” Athos rasps. “Only I myself am not the talking kind.”

“It’s an open offer,” Treville tells him, having nothing better to say. He looks Athos up at down, looks at the locket, thinks of the smell of liquor, and comes to the unhappy conclusion that although Athos’ first command mission may have sent him over the edge, other factors had already led him close to it.

“I’d feel better about leaving if I saw you drink some water and get in bed first. Unless of course… you’d allow me to stay?”

“I am somewhat thirsty,” Athos replies… allowing the captain to see to him one more time, but not inviting him to stay. It’s not as good as it could be but not as bad either.

Treville nods. He fetches Athos a mug of water then goes to him, cups a hand around the back of one of Athos’ and steadies it while he passes him the mug. Athos shivers at the touch, but manages to take the water and drink it down. Once it’s finished, Treville takes the empty mug away, then takes Athos’ arms and helps him stand, helps him teeter over to the bed, less shaky than he was but still far from steady.

Athos lies down, curls up with the blanket still around him, blinks up at Treville like a child... then, overcome by embarrassment, looks away.

Perhaps he’d rather not suffer the humiliation of his captain staying the night. But at the very least he should not have to fall asleep alone.

Treville casts an eye back to the floor. There’s vomit on it, as well as a pile of filthy clothes, and Treville is pretty sure that the last thing Athos will feel like doing in the morning is cleaning it up.

“What are you doing?” Athos murmurs, when Treville fetches his mop and begins to clean.

“I’m doing what it looks like I’m doing,” Treville replies, simply. He looks away, giving Athos space to react however it is that he needs to. Still he can feel the man’s eyes tracking him as he moves about the room.

Encouraged by this, he slows down, goes through every motion at quarter speed, prolonging it as much as he possibly can. Time passes, and the feeling of Athos’ gaze drops away.

When at last Treville changes a glance at the bed, Athos is fast asleep, uncurled just a little, one arm around his middle and the other arm up under his head. The locket is dark against the pale skin of his rising-falling chest. He doesn’t look like a lieutenant, then… not a tactician, not a master swordsman, not even a soldier, really, but a man who lost somebody he loved and who doesn’t expect to get them back.

Treville wants nothing more than to tug the blanket out from under him, cover him up with it more carefully, but he will not risk waking somebody who needs sleep so badly. Instead he only says a quiet prayer for Athos, then returns to cleaning the floor. He’s almost finished now, and since Athos is asleep he could afford to move a bit faster… but he doesn’t.


End file.
